Costuming for a superhero movie is Serious Business... or at least, it informs the audience how seriously the franchise takes itself. Spandex tends to say "camp" (the Spider-Man movies seem to buck that trend, though), Latex is associated with gritty (Batman, Watchmen), and Leather implies "real world" (the X-Men movies).

The reason is mostly because of the era associated with the heyday of each. Spandex, the form-fitting, brightly colored "tights", is most associated with old school Superheroes thanks to the 1930's Superman serials. The later use of spandex in the old Batman TV show with Adam West would also give it a campy, childish association.note The term "spandex" is an anachronism, as this synthetic fabric wasn't in wide use until well into the 1960s. Superman and Batman, like their TV counterparts, likely wore cotton. Latex, or hard rubber suits, is most remembered for Tim Burton's relaunch of the Batman franchise as a grim, Gothic and serious setting. Joel Schumacher attempted to shift this toward camp, but then Christopher Nolanshifted it even farther toward the "gritty" end than Burton did. Lastly, leather has been used in superhero movies since the beginning of the X-Men film series, bringing with it a real world setting, implying these are "plausible" heroes who can and do exist in a world much like our own, behaving as real people do rather than people in tights. To each their tastes.

The choice can actually be quite complicated because — of course — the actors have to wear these things. In X-Men, nobody could move in the leather. There was a scene as they are approaching the Statue of Liberty and they have to climb over a brick wall that's about two foot tall. It took them several takes because Jackman, Berry and Co. could barely clamber over it. Likewise, it wasn't until Batman Begins that any Batman actor could turn their head while in costume (Clooney lampshades this in a late show interview about how conversations between him and Arnold would go), though how much of this is the latex and how much of it was costume design is unknown.

Superman: Spandex, in a costume true to both the comics and the strongmen inspiration.

Superman Returns: They had to choose something that could fit into the same world as the spandex of the 1970s films, looked impressive now and that the actor could reasonably wear. Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Man of Steel: A texturized latex/leather that seems more outerworldly (Justified, as its actually a form of Space Clothes, he is an alien after all).

Watchmen: All three, actually, and more. The 1940s-vintage heroes mostly wore Spandex or its period equivalent (rather amusing are the realistic canvas, silk or cotton home-made costumes, considering that the heroes in question were ordinary people having either a bout of schizophrenia or a surfacing vigilante streak); some of those that didn't — like Silhouette — wore leather. The later Comedian preferred leather body armor, and Silk Spectre II was in latex. (Malin Åkerman famously commented that her costume made her "smell like a giant condom". Please refrain from comment.) Beyond that we had ordinary street wear for Rorschach (with a special mask that reacted to pressure and heat), assorted varieties of body armor for almost everyone else, and a bright blue birthday suit for Dr. Manhattan.

Thor: Chris Hemsworth said his costume made use of chainmail and leather, but his chest armor looks to be latex and the clothes worn under the armor (seen briefly in the movie) appears to be fabric. So... all three? Tom Hiddleston, who played antagonist Loki, once referred to their costumes as "Leather and metal. That's how we like it in Asgard."

On X-Men: First Class, however, the X-Men wear yellow suits made of fabric, inspired in equal part by the team's uniforms during their earliest comic appearances and the New X-Men suits. The only one in that movie to fit one of the three materials is Magneto in the ending.◊

Deliberately averted in the Green Lantern movie. The nature of the suit is a construct of the ring, after debating on a CG enhanced suit they decided to make the entire suit CG superimposed over Ryan Reynolds wearing a motion capture suit (the same process was in fact used with Robert Downey Jr. for Iron Man). The same goes for all human-performed Lanterns in the movie. The process was almost seamless, but fan reaction to the look varied.

In Wearing the Cape, superheroes use all three plus other materials. Choice depends on body-type (latex and leather can "hold in" bulges spandex can't), sex, attitude, and superhero personae. Most men wear cotton or leather bodysuits, for example. One female character wears a spandex catsuit under a tailored kevlar vest-skirt.

Live-Action TV

Super Sentai/Power Rangers teams wear spandex and similar fabrics, firmly cementing them into the campy category they've always held (though in-universe it's supposed to be some kind of special armor that just happens to look like spandex).

Rumor has it that there has been substantial pushback from the Power Rangers team toward Super Sentai in recent years to switch to leather. Whether it's related to these rumors or not, Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters did make the switch (at least to faux-leather), but it didn't last. Since Go-Busters didn't do as well as Toei hoped, the following season Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger went back to spandex and Power Rangers ironically skipped over adapting Go-Busters.

Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger used latex, though this is less about being gritty and more about playing up the Animesque aspects of the suits (apart from the Anime Hair molded into the helmets, there's the fact that the girls' suits have breasts...)

The older Showa series used spandex bodysuits with plastic armor, upgrading to fully latex suits around the time of Kamen Rider Black, then swapping over to leather with FRPnote fiberglass-reinforced plastic armor around Kamen Rider Kuuga.

The Flash, the live-action TV series from 1990, used a thick suit◊ for the Flash that may or may not have literally been latex (and looked like suede of all things), but was definitely similar. In-story it was based on a diving suit.

The 2014 reboot uses a costume made of a mixture of leather and fabric◊. In-universe, it's stated to be a special material designed to be used by firefighters. In both cases the costumes are a darker hue of red than the Flash's costume is usually colored in the comics.

LazyTown decided to go the spandex route, with both the hero Sportacus and the villain Robbie wearing tight outfits that helps explain why so many of the show's fans are adult women.

Smallville does not have one set answer. Clark Kent wore wear red and blue street clothes for most of the how, before settling on Civvie Spandex (usually a red leather jacket with an S logo or a Badass Longcoat worn over a black T-shirt with the S logo) in the final few seasons. Leather seemed to be the superhero outfit of choice, from the Green Arrow, to Doctor Fate, to Booster Gold. Stargirl was the only hero seen in full spandex (save for her mask), though her mentor the Star-Spangled Kid was wearing his spandex top as part of a Civvie Spandex ensemble while on the run from Checkmate.

Web Original

As noted in a Crackedarticle, professional cosplayer Ruby Rocket has tried all three and finds all of them to be highly impractical choices.

Justice Squad: Having had a large cast, all three have shown up on one character or another.

France Five: Spandex for the heroes, naturally, since the series tries to stick very closely to classic Sentai. The villains are a bit more varied, with leather, dominatrix-style, for Extasy, spandex shorts and little else for Warduke, and flowing robes for Cancrelax and Glou Man Chou.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy